THE PALACE OF THEOBALDS.-From a picture by Vinkenboone, in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. crowns a small sum compared with the dower which had been promised with the infanta. But James did not live to see the arrival either of the money or of the long-sought daughter-inlaw. His health had long been breaking under the united influences of anxiety, fear, full-feeding, and continual use of sweet wines; and he returned to Theobalds from his last hunting party with a disease which the doctors called a tertian ague. But it should appear that he had also the worst kind of gout upon him. He had always entertained a great aversion to medicine and physicians, but at this extremity all the court doctors were called in. While they were in attendance, Buckingham's mother presented herself with an infallible remedy, in the shape of a plaster and a posset, which she had procured from one Remington, a quack living in Essex, where, it was said, he had cured many agues. It should appear that the plaster was applied and the drink given contrary to the advice of the 1 The palace of Theobalds was situated a little north of the road to Ware, about twelve miles from London. The estate was purchased by Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley, in 1563; and he appears to have immediately commenced building this magnificent residence, which he must have finished before 1571. He had subsequently to enlarge it on account of the visits of Queen Elizabeth, of which he received ten or twelve at Theobalds, costing him from £2000 to £3000 each, an enormous sum in those days. After the death of Lord Burghley, in 1598, his son Sir Robert Cecil, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, and lord-treasurer under James I., succeeded to the estate, and having here entertained the king at two splendid banquets, his physicians. They may have produced irritation and done mischief; but we cannot believe that they were the cause of the death of James, or even intended to hasten his end. On the fourteenth day of his illness, being Sunday, the 27th of March," he sent before day-break for the prince, who rose out of his bed and went to him in his night-gown. The king seemed to have some earnest thing to say to him, and so endeavoured to raise himself upon his pillow; but his spirits were so spent that he had not strength to make his words audible. He lingered for a few hours, and then "went to his last rest, upon the day of rest, presently after sermon was done." James was in his fifty-ninth year, and he had been twenty-two years King of England. As soon as the breath was out of his body the privy council, or all the members of it that were at Theobalds, assembled, and in less than a quarter of an hour King Charles was proclaimed at Theobalds court-gate by Sir Edward Zouch, knight-marshal. majesty took a fancy to the house, and shortly afterwards induced the earl to exchange it for Hatfield. He gave up possession in 1607, and it continued to be James's favourite residence till the time of his death, after which it became the residence of his son Charles I. In 1650, by order of parliament, the greater part was levelled with the ground for the sake of the materials; but the room in which James I. died, with some other apartments, was standing in 1765, at which time, having passed through various hands, it had been purchased by Mr. Prescott (in 1763), who cleared away the entire remains to make room for building new houses. 3 Howell. 2 That is, the Sth of April, N. S CHAPTER VI.-CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY.-A.D. 1625-1627. CHARLES I.-ACCESSION, A.D. 1625-DEATH, A.D. 1649. Accession of Charles I.-His marriage with Henrietta Maria-Her arrival in England-Her train of Popish priests-Charles applies to parliament for money-Their restricted supply-Their applications for religious reforms-Discontent at Charles's proceedings in the war of the French Huguenots-Money refused for the prosecution of the war-Bold remonstrance of parliament-Its dissolution-Unsuccessful expedition against Spain-Buckingham's proceedings to precipitate a war with France-His insolent conduct to Queen Henrietta -Charles revives the old statutes against Papists-His coronation-Opening of parliament-Its proceedings in the reform of abuses-Charles interferes-Opposition of the commons to his interference-They impeach the Duke of Buckingham-Charles quarrels with the House of Lords-Accusations of the Earl of Bristol against the Duke of Buckingham-The duke's trial-The proceedings interrupted by the king-He confers additional honours on Buckingham-Parliament dissolved-Despotic measures of Charles to raise money-. Discontent occasioned by them-His proceedings defended from the pulpit-Puritanism thereby increased— Charles drives the queen's priests out of the kingdom-Complaints of the French court in consequenceAnswer of the English council-War against France commenced-Buckingham's expedition for the relief of Rochelle-His attempts on the island of Rhé-His unwise and inefficient proceedings-His ruinous retreatHis welcome from Charles at his return to England. IN the afternoon of Monday, the 28th of March, Charles took coach at Theobalds with the Duke of Buckingham, and came to Whitehall. On the same day he was proclaimed at Whitehall-gate and in Cheapside, in the midst of a sad shower of rain; and the weather was thought suitable to the condition in which he found the kingdom. A few days after, the plague broke out in Whitechapel, whence it extended its ravages to every part of London. It was said to be even a worse plague than that which raged at the time of his father's coronation. Charles re-appointed the council and the officers of government, making scarcely any change. Buckingham stood forward more powerful and vainglorious than ever. There was, however, some change for the better at court; the fools, and buffoons, and other familiars of James were dismissed, the church, and an attentive listener to prayers and sermons; that he intended to pay all his father's, mother's, and brother's debts; and that, by disparking most of his remote parks and chases, to reform the court of unnecessary charges, and to drive from it all recusant Papists. On the 30th of March, three days after his father's death, Charles ratified, as king, the treaty with France; and on the 1st of May the marriage CHARLES I.-After Vandyke. ceremony was performed at Paris- the Duke of Chevreuse, a member of the house of Guise, acting as Charles's proxy. Buckingham was appointed to bring the bride to England, and he proceeded with an immense retinue to Paris, where he dazzled all eyes with his splendour. This man's gallantry was not checked by the national shyness of Englishmen ; for he had scarcely set foot in the French court, when he declared love to the young queen, Anne of Austria. The Cardinal Richelieu made all the haste he decently the courtiers were required to be attentive to re- | could to get him back to England, and, after ligion, and modest and quiet in their demeanour, eight days, Buckingham left Paris, with Henand they generally became, if not more moral, far more decorous. In a few days after the accession, it was reported of the new sovereign that he was zealous for God's truth, a diligent frequenter of rietta Maria. They travelled very slowly, or stopped very frequently; for though they began their journey on the 23d of May, they did not reach Dover till the 12th of June in the evening. That night the young queen slept in Dover Castle. On the morrow morning Charles, who had slept at Canterbury, rode to Dover to receive his wife. They met in the castle: the bride knelt down at his feet, and would have kissed his hand, but the king took her up in his arms and kissed her with many kisses. The royal couple proceeded together to Canterbury, on the following day to Rochester, the day after to Gravesend, and, on the 16th, there being a very great shower, the king and queen, in the royal barge, passed through London bridge to Whitehall. Notwithstanding the rain and the plague, the Londoners crowded the river and its banks to get a sight of the bride, whose appearance and cheerful manners gave them much satisfaction. Stories were soon circulated of her wit, and freedom from bigotry. It was said (and the thing was considered very important) that she had eaten pheasant and venison on a fast-day, notwithstanding the remonstrance of her confessor, and that, upon being asked if she could abide a Huguenot, she replied, "Why not?-was not my father one?" In short, before she had been four-and-twenty hours at Whitehall, it was joyfully announced that she had already given some good signs of hope that she might ere long become a very good Protestant. But in a few days these bright hopes seemed to fade; and people began to count the great number of priests she had brought over in her train, and to murmur at the idolatry of the mass being again set up in the palaces of their kings. She had twenty-nine priests, fourteen of them Theatines,' and fifteen seculars, besides a bishop, a young man under thirty years of age. On Sundays and saints' days mass was celebrated in the queen's closet at Whitehall, Charles giving strict orders that no English man or woman should come near the place during the celebration. The priests were very importunate to have a large chapel finished at St. James's, but the king was very slow in gratifying them in this particular. If the French princess had been the most excellent and amiable of women, these circumstances would have rendered her odious in the eyes of the nation; but Henrietta Maria, though lively and pleasant, when pleased, was not the most amiable of women: she was selfwilled, obstinate, haughty, and overbearing, and began to show her temper, even in public, before An order founded at Rome in 1524, by John Peter Caraffa, afterwards Pope Paul IV., then Archbishop of Chieti, or Theate, in the province of Abruzzi, in the kingdom of Naples. 2 Meade, in one of his epistles, gives the following passage from a letter written by his court-frequenting friend, Mr. Mordant: "The queen, howsoever, very little of stature, is yet of a pleasing countenance (if she be pleased), but full of spirit and vigour; and seems of more than ordinary resolution. With one she had been a fortnight in England. Meanwhile, the plague grew worse and worse. In the eyes of the Puritans the inference was obviousthe land was scourged for relapsing into idolatry. Charles had issued writs for a parliament to meet on the 17th of May; but in consequence of two prorogations, it did not assemble till the 10th of June, the very day after his arrival at Whitehall with his queen. Though not yet crowned, he wore the crown on his head. The young king (he was in his twenty-fifth year) was no orator, and he had the defect of stammering; but the words of his first address were plain and sensible. Instead of trying the patience of the houses with long, rambling, pedantic speeches, he went at once to the point. He wanted money, and he told them so. In fact, the debts which his father had left amounted to £700,000; he had already contracted considerable debts of his own: and the money voted for the war was long since swallowed up. He did not hint at a peace;3 he said, on the contrary, that the war must be pushed with vigour, and here minded them that they themselves had voted a recourse to arms, and, therefore, the war being their own work, the dishonour would lie upon them, if it were not followed up with spirit from a want of the necessary supplies. But though still inclined to hostilities with Spain and the Catholics, the commons knew by this time that the war had been most miserably conducted. They now hated and suspected Buckingham, whose popularity bloomed and died almost as fast as a flower; and they required from the new king, who had already declared against concession, some pledges of an extensive reform. In this temper they limited their votes to two subsidies (about £140,000), and the duties of tonnage and poundage, not for life, as had been practised for two centuries, but for one year. They were also distressed by the anomalous position of the kingthe head of the Protestant league, the chief of a war of religion, or what they at least meant should be such-and yet suffering mass to be celebrated in his own house, and his court to swarm with Papists and priests. They presented a "a pious petition" to his majesty, conjuring him to put into immediate execution all the penal statutes against Catholics and missionaries. Charles had promised, had signed, and sealed, and solemnly sworn, in his matri commons. monial treaty with France, to do no such thing; | ces meanwhile occurred still further to bring his but he durst not avow this engagement, and he government into disrepute. Soubise and the returned a gracious answer to the petition of the Huguenots still kept possession of Rochelle and In another matter, however, he was the island of Rhé, and the fleet was so powerful less timid and complying. One of his chaplains, at sea that the French Catholics could not meet Dr. Montague, the editor of his father's works, was it. In virtue of the recent alliance, Cardinal a decided champion of those tenets for and by Richelieu applied to the English for assistance which Laud afterwards set the kingdom in a blaze. against the French Protestants. Charles and He taught and wrote that there was a monstrous Buckingham complied; but, to deceive the people, difference between the doctrines of Calvin and it was given out that the armament was intended, the Puritans and those entertained by the Angli- not against Rochelle, but against the city of Genoa, can church, and that in many points the Estab- which was in alliance with the house of Austria. lished church agreed more closely with that of Ever since Buckingham had been lord-admiral, Rome than with that of Geneva. Two Puritan the navy had been wofully neglected, in conseministers drew up an information against the doc- quence of which the seas were infested by pirates, tor's heresy, to be laid before parliament. Mon- and the trade of the country frequently motague thereupon published a tract, which was lested. The only man-of-war in a state fit to called "An Appeal to Cæsar," and dedicated to put to sea was the Vanguard; but the French King Charles. Many who read the tract pro- ministry was urgent, and so seven merchant nounced the author to be a Papist in disguise, vessels of the largest size were pressed into the and one that, under the encouragement of the king's service. Buckingham provided the little court, was attempting gradually to re-introduce fleet with stores and ammunition as he best could. the old religion. The commons drew up articles The fleet stood across the Channel; but, when off against the doctor, declaring him to have "main- Dieppe, they learned from the Duke of Montmotained and confirmed some doctrine contrary to rency, the Lord-admiral of France, that they were the articles agreed by the archbishops and bishops, expected to take on board French sailors and soland the whole clergy, in the year 1562; and by diers, and then to proceed to fight against the his so doing, to have broke the laws and statutes Protestants of Rochelle. Captains and men inof this realm." They took him into custody, and stantly refused, drew up a protest or petition, commanded him to appear at the bar of their and forced Pennington, the commander of the house. little fleet, to sail back to the Downs. Pennington himself then begged to be excused going on such a service; and presently the Duke of Rohan, Soubise, and the other Huguenot chiefs, who had got a hint of what was intended, despatched an envoy to London, to implore the king not to employ his forces against his Protestant brethren. The envoy had good words and hopes from Charles, but Buckingham told him that the king, his master, had pledged his word, and that the ships must and should go. The captains and owners of the merchant vessels, however, represented that they had been hired and impressed for the King of England's service, and they could not be passed into the hands of the French without higher orders and a new agreement. Hereupon Buckingham posted down to Rochester with the French ambassador, who undertook to charter the merchants' ships for King Louis. But, in spite of the high and absolute tone of the favourite, merchants, captains, and men were alike averse to the service. In the beginning of July, Secretary Conway wrote a letter in King Charles's name to Vice-admiral Pennington, telling him that his master had left the command of the ships to the French king, and that he, Pennington, should take on board at Dieppe as many men as the French pleased, and that this letter was to be his warrant. A trick was put upon The king represented that it was for him, and not for them, to take cognizance of the conduct of his chaplains; but the commons replied that they were competent to visit such offences in a chaplain or in any other servant of the court; and they would not let the doctor go till he had given bail in £2000 for his re-appearance. Charles had expressed indignation at the vote of supplies, and the lords threw out the tonnage and poundage part of the bill, because the grant of these duties was not for life. Lord Conway, the chief secretary, was pressing the commons for more money, when the plague became so alarming that many members absented themselves, and the king adjourned the parliament to the 1st of August, appointing it to meet, not at Westminster, but at Oxford." Previously to the calling a parliament, Charles, of his own authority, had issued warrants for levying troops for the Palatinate; and, having no money, had exacted that the charges of "coat and conduct" should be borne by the people, who were, in return, to receive a promise of repayment from his exchequer. This gave rise to great discontents, but the king continued the practice during the recess; and other circumstan Montague was rewarded for his sufferings by an increase of the royal favour; and the man that the commons had denounced soon received a bishopric! 2 Rushworth; Parl. Hist. the sailors-they were told again that they were to go to Genoa-and they once more sailed to Dieppe, Pennington having another letter, written by Charles himself, which charged and commanded him, without delay, to put his majesty's ship the Vanguard into the hands of the French, and to require the commanders of the seven merchant ships, in his majesty's name, to do the same, nay, in case of backwardness, to use forcible means, even to sinking, to compel them. As soon as he reached Dieppe, Pennington delivered up the Vanguard, and acquainted the rest of the captains with the king's commands. Again, they all refused to obey. When they prepared to heave anchor, Pennington fired into them from the man-of-war, and compelled them to stay, all but the brave Sir Ferdinand Gorge, in the Neptune "more brave in running away from this abominable action than charging in the midst of an enemy." The Frenchmen were embarked, and Pennington led them to Rochelle; but to make the Englishmen fight under such circumstances was beyond his power. They deserted, and joined the Huguenots, or returned home. The siege of Rochelle was abandoned, and Char- | les drew upon himself an almost crushing weight of odium without being of any use to Louis.' the country into a war merely from personal spite against the Spanish favourite Olivares. The tone of the house was bold and resolute. The learned Sir Robert Cotton, after applauding the "constant wisdom" of the house, as shown in their censure of that ill-advised minister for trenching upon their ancient liberties, told them that, notwithstanding those walls could not conceal from the ears of captious, guilty, and revengeful men without, the councils and debates within, he would express his honest thoughts, and show the crimes for which parliament had impeached other minions in elder times. He proceeded to give a history of royal favourites, from the Spensers and Gavestons of Edward II. to the Somerset and Buckingham of the present age, and showed how the latter was the worst of the two. Bucking. ham, at the desire of the king, presented an account of the navy, and a denial of having acted through personal feelings in the quarrel with Spain. His tone was mild and gentle-almost pathetic in speaking of his loss of the commons' favour-but when he alluded to the Earl of Bristol, he could not conceal his deadly hatred. When they had sat nine days, the commons were told from the king that his business required a speedy despatch; that the plague might touch them, and that he desired a present answer about his supplies; that if they would not give such answer without loss of time, he would take more care of their health than they themselves seemed disposed to take, and shift for himself as he could. They were debating upon the subject of a supply, but were not inclined to be very liberal without some tender of redress, when this threat of dissolution reached their ears. A most animated debate ensued, and they appointed a committee to prepare their answer. This proved to be a spirited but respectful declaration, putting forward abuses, but not refusing fresh supplies. They told his majesty that they were abundantly comforted by his majesty's late gracious answer touching their religion, and his message for the care of their health, and they solemnly vowed and protested before God and the world, with one heart and voice, that they would ever continue most loyal and obedient servants. But, they added, "We will, in a convenient time, and in a parliamentary way, freely and dutifully do our utmost endeavours to discover and reform the abuses and grievances of this realm and state. and in like sort to afford all necessary supply to his most excellent majesty upon his present occasions and designs: most humbly beseeching our said dear and dread sovereign, in his princely wisdom and goodness, to rest assured of the true and hearty affections of his poor commons; and 2 The commons said, with some reason, that they hardly knew to esteem the same to be (as we conceive it is inwhom they were at war with. There had been no declaration! deed) the greatest worldly reputation and secu On the 1st of August the parliament met in the good city of Oxford. Charles summoned both houses to attend him in the hall of Christ Church, and there asked for more money to carry on the war.? A day or two after, it was seen that, notwithstanding this demand, and the earnest representations of ministers, the commons would not vote any more subsidies, or change their previous decision about tonnage and poundage. They, in fact, applied themselves to the redress of grievances, foremost among which they placed the non-enforcement of the penal statutes against Papists. Old Coke, more bold and impressive from his great age, denounced new invented offices and useless officers, which cost much money, and ought to be abolished; the multiplicity of great offices in one man-meaning, of course, Buckingham; the prodigality of the court and household; and the paying of certain pen sions, which ought to be stopped until the king was out of debt. Other members denounced with as much vehemence, if not eloquence, the now common practice of selling the offices of government. By this time the Earl of Bristol had explained to many his own conduct and the conduct of Buckingham at Madrid; and an inquiry was proposed into the mal-administration of the favourite as lord-admiral, and his having brought 1 Rymer; Cabala; Rushworth; Clarendon Papers; Les Larmes de l'Angleterre. |